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THE 

BUSINESS  CAREER 

IN  ITS  PUBLIC  RELATIONS 

BY 

Albert  Shaw,  Ph.  D. 

EDITOR  OF  THE 
AMERICAN  REVIEW  OF  REVIEWS 


It  is  the  positive  and  aggressive 
attitude  tov/ard  life,  the  ethics  of 
a<flion,  rather  than  the  ethics  of 
negation,  that  mu£l  control  the 
modern  business  world,  and  that 
may  make  our  modem  business 
man  the  mo^  potent  f  adlor  for  good 
in  this,  his  own,  industrial  period. 


PAUL  ELDER  AND  COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS,  SAN   FRANCISCO 


Copyright,  1904 

by  Paul  Elder  and  Company 

San  Francisco 


The  Tomoye  Pres» 


THE   cultivation  of   public 
spirit,  in  the  broad  sense, 
and  the  determination  to 
be  an  all-round  good  and  effi- 
cient citizen  and  member  of  the 
c^  community,  will  often  help  a  man 

is.  amazingly  to  discern  the  oppor- 

cc  tunities  for  usefulness  that  lie  in 

^  the  dire<fl  line  of  his  business  life. 

I— i^M^i^MJBn 


o 


«0 

a: 

S 

O 


(9 


439781 


THE     FOUNDER'S     PREFACE 

DESPITE  all  that  can  ^ill  be  said  again^ 
trade  pradlices,  agciin^  the  business 
lies  that  are  told,  the  false  weights 
and  measures  that  are  used,  the  trade  frauds  to 
which  the  public  is  subjeded,  we  are  nearer  a 
high  commercial  ^andard  than  ever  before  in 
the  world's  hi^ory. 

Man's  confidence  in  man  is  greater  than  ever 
before,  the  commercial  loss  through  fraud  and 
dishone^y  is  con^antly  diminishing  and  ^and- 
ards  are  slowly  but  surely  moving  upward.  The 
honeS  man's  chances  for  success  in  business  are 
better  than  ever  before,  and  the  dishone^  man's 
chances  for  lading  commercial  success  are  less 
than  ever  before.  To  grow  rich  by  failing  in 
business  is  no  longer  regarded  as  an  ad  of  clev- 
erness. The  professional  bankrupt  finds  it  more 
and  more  difficult  to  get  credit.  He  soon  dis- 
covers that  even  his  cash  will  not  win  for  him 
the  attention  that  his  poorer  neighbor  commands 
simply  by  his  charader. 

Ivl 


THE     FOUNDER'S     PREFACE 

Education  has  done  splendid  service  in  rais- 
ing commercizJ  ^andards.  As  a  rule,  the  high- 
toned  business  man  is  enlightened,  and,  as  a  rule, 
the  dishoneil,  unscrupulous  man  in  business  is 
ignorant.  Great  aid  in  the  diredion  of  raising 
commercial  ^andards  may  be  rendered  by  the 
further  spreading  of  knowledge  and  enlighten- 
ment. There  are  ^ill  meiny  misguided  men  in 
business  who  imagine  that  there  can  be  no  suc- 
cess without  false  weights  and  measures,  without 
lies  and  deceit.  It  is  the  duty  of  every  man  in 
business,  who  loves  the  work  in  which  he  is 
engaged,  to  do  whatever  he  can  to  correcft  this 
mistaken  notion,  and  to  arouse  the  same  sense 
of  honor  in  the  circles  of  commerce  that,  as  a 
rule,  is  found  in  professional  life. 

In  the  decades  to  come  men  will  take  as 
much  pride  in  being  engaged  in  trade  as  men 
always  have  taken  in  being  members  of  a  liberal 
profession. 

It  seemed  to  me  that  a  ^ep  toward  ha^ening 
[vi] 


THE     FOUNDER'S     PREFACE 

such  a  day  might  be  taken  by  inviting  the  beA 
thoughts  of  some  of  the  country's  be^  minds  on 
the  subjed  of  "  The  Morals  of  Trade." 

What  better  platform  for  the  expression  of 
such  ideas  than  that  furnished  by  the  College  of 
Commerce  of  the  University  of  California? 
What  better  vv^ay  to  spread  such  thoughts  than 
by  means  of  their  di^ribution  in  printed  form? 
What  better  vv^ay  to  train  to  higher  commercial 
^andards  the  minds,  not  only  of  the  youths  who 
are  seeking  a  university  education  and  who  have 
in  view  a  business  career,  but  also  of  the  many 
already  engaged  in  business  who  have  not  had 
the  benefit  of  a  college  training? 

It  seemed  to  me  that  such  a  ^ep  might 
set  in  motion  a  commercially  educational 
force  which  would  prove  far-reaching  in  its 
influence  and  mo^  helpful  in  raising  business 
chara<5ter. 

Thoughts  such  as  these  prompted  the  recent 
eilablishing  of  the  ledtureship  on  "The  Morals 
[vii] 


THE     FOUNDER'S     PREFACE 

of  Trade"  in  connedion  with  the  College   of 
Commerce  of  the  University  of  California. 

Let  the  hope  be  expressed  that  this  is  but  the 
beginning  of  a  movement  w^hich  may  be  taken 
up  by  abler  and  w^ealthier  men  in  business  and 
broadened  in  many  w^ays.  A  growing  litera- 
ture on  "  The  Morals  of  Trade,"  representing  the 
be^  thoughts  of  our  be^  minds,  is  likely  to  live 
and  to  do  splendid  service  in  elevating  commerce 
and  in  raising  its  standards. 

H.  WEINSTOCK. 


Iviii] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

THE  purpose  of  this  discourse  is  to  set 
forth  some  of  the  social  and  public 
aspeds  of  trade  and  commerce  in  our 
modem  life.  We  have  heard  much  in  these 
recent  times  concerning  the  State  in  its  relation 
to  trade,  industry,  and  the  economic  concerns  of 
individuals  and  groups.  Rapidly  changing  con- 
ditions, how^ever,  make  it  fitting  that  more  should 
be  said  from  the  opposite  ^andpoint;  —  that  is  to 
say,  regarding  the  responsibilities  of  the  business 
community  as  such  toward  the  State  in  particu- 
lar and  toward  the  whole  social  organism  in  gen- 
eral. 

Some  of  the  thoughts  to  which  I  should  like 
to  give  expression  might  perhaps  too  readily  fall 
into  ab^rad  or  philosophical  terms.  They 
might,  on  the  other  hand,  only  too  readily 
clothe  themselves  in  cant  phrases  and  assume 
the  hortatory  tone.  I  shall  try  to  avoid  dialedic 
or  theory  on  the  one  hand,  and  preaching  on 
the  other.     I  take  it  that  what  I  am  to  say 

[II 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

is  addressed  chiefly  to  young  men,  and  that  it 
ought  to  serve  a  pradical  objedt. 

In  the  universities  the  spirit  of  idealism  domi- 
nates. The  academic  point  of  view  is  not 
merely  an  intelledual  one,  but  it  is  also  ethical 
and  altrui^c.  In  the  business  vv^orld,  on  the 
other  hand,  we  are  told  that  no  success  is  pos- 
sible except  that  which  is  based  upon  the  motive 
of  money-getting  by  any  means,  however  ruth- 
less. We  are  told  that  the  ^andards  of  business 
life  are  in  conflidl  irreconcilable  with  true  ideal- 
ise aims.  It  is  this  situation  that  I  wish  to  ana- 
lyze and  discuss;  for  it  concems  the  ^udent  in  a 
very  diredt  way. 

Our  moralists  point  out  the  dangerous  preva- 
lence of  those  low  standards  of  personal  life  and 
conduct  summed  up  in  the  term  "commercial- 
ism." We  are  warned  by  some  of  our  foremo^ 
teachers  and  ethical  leaders  againA  commercial- 
ism in  politics  and  commercialism  in  society.  So 
bitterly  reprobated  indeed  is  the  influence  of 
[2] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 


commercialism  that  it  might  be  inferred  that 
commerce  itself  is  at  be^  a  necessary  evil  and 
a  thing  to  be  apologized  for.  But  if  we  are  to 
accept  this  point  of  view  without  careful  discrimi- 
nation, we  may  well  be  alarmed;  for  we  live  in 
a  world  given  over  as  never  before  to  the  whirl 
of  induSry  and  the  rush  and  excitement  of  the 
market-place. 

This,  of  all  ages,  is  the  age  of  the  business 
man.  The  heroic  times  when  warfare  was  the 
chief  concern  of  nations,  have  long  since  passed 
by.  So  too  the  ages  of  faith, —  when  theology 
was  the  mainspring  of  adlion,  when  whole  peoples 
went  on  long  crusades,  and  when  building  cathe- 
drals and  burning  heretics  were  typical  of  men's 
efforts  and  convidions  —  have  fallen  far  into  the 
historic  background.  Further,  we  would  seem 
in  the  main  to  have  left  behind  us  that  period  of 
which  the  French  Revolution  is  the  mo^  con- 
spicuous landmark,  when  the  gaining  of  political 
liberty  for  the  individual  seemed  the  one  supreme 
[3] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

good,  and  the  objecfl  for  which  nations  and  com- 
munities were  ready  to  sacrifice  all  else. 

Through  these  and  other  periods  chara(5terized 
by  their  own  especial  aims  and  ideals,  we  have 
come  to  an  age  when  commercialism  is  the  all- 
absorbing  thing;  and  we  are  told  by  pessimi^s 
that  these  dominant  conditions  are  hopelessly  in- 
compatible with  academic  idealism  or  with  the 
maintenance  of  high  ethical  Aandards,  whether 
for  the  guidance  of  the  individual  himself  or  for 
the  acceptance  and  control  of  the  conmiunity. 
It  is  precisely  this  ^te  of  affairs,  then,  that  I  de- 
sire briefly  to  consider.  And  I  shall  keep  in 
mind  those  bearings  of  it  that  might  seem  to 
have  some  relation  to  the  views  and  aims  of  ^- 
dents  who  are  soon  to  go  out  from  the  sheltered 
life  of  the  university, — under  the  necessity, 
whether  they  shrink  from  it  or  not,  of  becoming 
part  and  parcel  of  this  organism  of  business  and 
trade  that  has  invaded  almost  every  sphere  of 
modem  adivity. 

141 


THE      BUSINESS      CAREER 

I  have  only  recently  heard  a  great  and  elo- 
quent teacher  of  morals,  himself  an  exponent  of 
the  highest  and  finest  culture  to  which  we  have 
attained,  speak  in  terms  of  the  utmo^  doubt  and 
anxiety  regarding  the  drift  of  the  times.  To  his 
mind,  the  evils  and  dangers  accompanying  the 
^upendous  developments  of  our  day  are  such  as 
to  set  what  he  called  commercialism  in  diredl 
antagonism  to  all  that  in  his  mind  represented 
the  higher  good,  which  he  termed  idealism.  The 
impression  that  he  left  upon  his  audience  was  that 
the  forces  of  our  present-day  business  life  are  in- 
herently opposed  to  the  achievement  of  the  beA 
results  in  ^atecraft  and  in  the  general  life  of  the 
community.  He  could  propose  no  remedy  for 
the  evils  he  deplored  except  education,  and  the 
saving  of  the  old  ideals  through  the  remnant  of 
the  faithful  who  had  not  bowed  the  knee  in  the 
temple  of  Mammon.  But  he  pointed  out  no 
way  by  which  to  proted  the  tender  blossoms 
of  academic  idealism,  when  they  meet  their 
(51 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

inevitable  exposure  in  due  time  to  the  blighting 
and  withering  bla^s  of  the  commercialisin  that  to 
him  seemed  so  little  reconcilable  with  the  good» 
the  true,  and  the  beautiful. 

To  all  this  the  pradlical  man  can  only  reply, 
that  if,  indeed,  commercialism  itself  cannot  be 
made  to  furnish  a  soil  and  an  atmosphere  in 
which  idealism  can  grow,  bud,  blossom,  and  bear 
glorious  fruit, — then  idealism  is  hopelessly  a  lo^ 
cause.  If  it  be  not  possible  to  promote  things 
ideally  good  through  these  very  forces  of  com- 
mercial and  industrial  life,  then  the  outlook  is  a 
gloomy  one  for  the  social  morali^  and  the  polit- 
ical puri^. 

It  is  not  a  defensive  position  that  I  propose  to 
take.  I  should  not  think  it  needful  at  this  time 
even  so  much  as  briefly  to  refled  any  of  those 
timorous  and  painful  arguments  pro  and  con  that 
one  finds  at  times  running  through  the  columns  of 
the  press,  particularly  of  the  religious  weeklies, 
on  such  a  que^on  as,  for  example,  whether 
[61 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

nowadays  a  man  can  at  the  same  time  be  a 
true  Chri^an  and  a  successful  business  man; 
or  whether  the  observance  of  the  principles  of 
common  hone^y  is  at  all  compatible  with  a 
winning  effort  to  make  a  decent  living. 

I  am  well  aware  that  the  thoughtful  and  intel- 
ledual  founder  of  this  ledureship,  under  which  I 
have  been  invited  to  speak,  takes  no  such  narrow 
view  either  of  morality  on  the  one  hand  or  of 
the  fundion  of  business  life  on  the  other.  His 
definition  of  morality  in  business  would  demand 
something  very  different  from  the  mere  avoidance 
of  certain  obvious  transgressions  of  the  accepted 
rules  of  condud,  particularly  of  that  command- 
ment which  says :  "  Thou  shalt  not  ^eal."  Nor, 
on  the  other  hand,  would  his  definition  of  the 
functions  of  business  life  be  in  any  manner 
bounded  by  the  notion  that  business  is  a  pursuit 
having  for  its  sole  objed  the  getting  of  the  larger 
possible  amount  of  money. 

Those  people  who  are  content  to  apply 
[7] 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 


negative  moral  ilandards  to  the  carrying  on  of 
business  life  remind  one  of  the  little  boy's  familiar 
definition  of  salt:  "Salt,"  said  he,  "is  what  makes 
potatoes  ta^e  bad  when  you  don't  put  any  on." 
According  to  that  sort  of  definition,  morality  in 
business  would  be  defined  as  that  quality  which 
makes  the  grocer  good  and  respedable  when  he 
resits  temptation  and  does  not  put  sand  in  the 
sugar.  The  smug  maxim  that  honeily  is  the  beil 
policy,  while  doubtless  true  enough  as  a  verdidl 
of  human  experience  under  normal  conditions, 
is  not  fitted  to  arouse  much  enthusiasm  as  a  ^ate- 
ment  of  ultimate  ethical  aims  and  ideals. 

If  it  were  admitted  that  the  sole  or  guiding 
motive  in  a  business  career  mu^  needs  be  the 
accumulation  of  money,  I  should  certainly  not 
think  it  worth  while,  in  the  name  of  trade  morals, 
to  urge  young  men  who  are  to  enter  business  life 
that  they  play  the  game  according  to  safe  and 
well-recognized  rules.  I  would  not  take  the 
trouble  to  advise  them  to  ^udy  the  penal  code 
[8] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

and  to  familiarize  themselves  with  the  legal  defini- 
tions of  grand  and  petit  larceny,  of  embezzle- 
ment, or  fraud,  or  arson,  in  order  that  they  might 
escape  certain  hazards  that  beset  a  too  narrow 
kind  of  devotion  to  business  success.  It  is  true, 
doubtless,  that  a  business  career  affords  peculiar 
opportunities,  and  is  therefore  subjedt  to  its  own 
charaderi^c  temptations,  as  respe<5ls  the  purely 
private  and  personal  ^andards  of  condudl. 

The  magnitude  of  our  economic  movement, 
the  very  splendor  of  the  opportunities  that  the 
swift  development  of  a  va^  young  country  like 
ours  affords,  mu^  inevitably  in  some  cases  upset 
at  once  the  sober  business  judgment  of  men,  and 
in  some  cases  the  ^andard  of  personal  honor 
and  good  faith,  in  the  temptation  to  gel  rich 
quickly;  so  that  wrong  is  done  thereby  to  a 
man*s  associates  or  to  those  whose  interests  are 
in  his  hands,  while  ^11  greater  wrong  is  done  to 
his  own  chara(fter. 

But,  even  again^  this  dangerous  greed  for 
[91 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 


wealth  and  the  unscrupulousness  and  ruthlessness 
which  it  engenders,  it  is  no  part  of  my  pres- 
ent objecfl  to  warn  any  young  man.  I  take 
it  that  the  negative  ^andards  of  private  condudt 
are  usually  not  much  affedled  by  a  man's  choice 
of  a  pursuit  in  life.  If  any  man's  honor  could 
be  filched  from  him  by  a  merely  pecuniary 
reward,  whether  greater  or  less,  I  should  not 
think  it  likely  that  he  would  be  much  safer  in  the 
long  run  if  he  chose  the  clerical  profession,  for 
example,  than  if  he  went  into  business. 

Sooner  or  later  his  characfter  would  disclose 
itself.  It  is  not,  then,  of  the  private  and  negative 
^andards  of  conducft  that  I  wish  to  speak, — 
except  by  way  of  such  allusions  as  these.  And 
even  these  allusions  are  only  for  the  sake  of  mak- 
ing more  di^indt  the  positive  and  adlive  phases 
of  business  ethics  that  I  should  like  to  present  in 
such  a  way  as  to  fa^en  them  upon  the  attention. 

Many  young  men,  to  whom  these  views  are 
addressed,  will  doubtless  choose,  or  have  already 
[101 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 


0 


chosen,  what  is  commonly  known  as  a  profes- 
sional career.  The  mini^ry,  law,  and  medicine 
are  the  olde^  and  be^  recognized  of  the  so-called 
liberal  or  learned  professions.  Now  what  are 
the  di^indive  marks  of  professional  life?  Are 
the  men  who  pradtice  these  professions  not  also 
business  men?  And  if  so,  how  are  they  differ- 
ent from  those  business  men  who  are  considered 
laymen,  or  non-professional?  Obviously  the  dis- 
tindions  that  are  to  be  drawn,  if  any,  are  in  the 
nature  of  marked  tendencies.  We  shall  not 
exped  to  find  any  hard  and  fa^  lines.  Many 
lawyers,  some  dodors,  and  a  few  clergymen  are 
clearly  enough  business  men,  in  the  sense  that 
they  attach  more  importance  to  the  economic 
bearings  of  the  part  they  play  in  the  social 
organism  than  to  the  higher  ethical  or  intelledual 
aspeds  of  their  work. 

I  have  read  and  heard  many  definitions  of  what 
resJly  con^tutes  a  professional  man.  Whatever 
else,  however,  may  charaderize  the  nature  of 

[11] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

his  calling,  it  seems  to  me  plain  that  no  man 
can  be  thought  a  true  or  worthy  member  of  a 
profession  who  does  not  admit,  both  in  theory 
and  in  the  rules  and  pradices  of  his  life,  that  he 
has  a  public  fundion  to  serve,  and  that  he  mu^ 
frequently  be  at  some  discomfort  or  disadvantage 
because  of  the  calls  of  professional  duty.  The 
laborer  is  worthy  of  his  hire;  and  the  profes- 
sional man  is  entitled  to  obtain,  if  he  can,  a  com- 
petence for  himself  and  his  family  from  the  use- 
ful and  produdlive  service  he  is  rendering  to  his 
fellow  men.  He  may  even,  through  genius  or 
through  the  great  confidence  his  characfler  and 
skill  inspire,  gain  considerable  wealth  in  the  prac- 
tice of  his  profession.  But  if  he  is  a  true  pro- 
fessional man  he  does  not  derive  his  incentive 
to  effort  solely  or  chiefly  from  the  pecuniary 
gains  that  his  profession  brings  him.  Nor  is  the 
amount  of  his  income  regarded  among  the  fel- 
low members  of  his  profession  as  the  true  te^  or 
measure  of  his  success. 

[12] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 


11 


Thus  the  lawyer,  in  the  theory  of  his  profes- 
sion, bears  an  important  public  relation  to  the 
dispensing  of  ju^ce  and  to  the  protection  of  the 
innocent  and  the  feeble.  He  is  not  a  private 
person,  but  a  part  of  the  sy^em  for  supporting 
the  reign  of  law  and  of  right  in  the  community. 
Hi^orically,  in  this  country,  the  lawyer  has  also 
borne  a  great  part  in  the  making  and  admini^er- 
ing  of  our  in^tutions  of  government  If,  as  some 
of  us  think,  the  ethical  code  of  that  profession 
needs  to  be  somewhat  revised  in  view  of  present- 
day  conditions,  and  needs  also  to  be  more  ^emly 
applied  to  some  of  the  members  of  the  profes- 
sion, it  is  true,  none  the  less,  that  there  clearly 
belongs  to  this  great  calling  a  series  of  duties  of 
a  public  nature,  some  of  them  imposed  by  the 
laws  of  the  land,  and  others  inherent  in  the  very 
nature  of  the  occupation  itself. 

It  is  true  in  an  even  more  marked  and  unde- 
niable fashion  that  the  profession  of  medicine, 
by  virtue  of  its  public  and  social  aspedts,  is 
[131 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

di^nguished  in  a  marked  way  from  a  calling  in 
life  in  which  a  man  might  feel  that  what  he  did 
was  ^ridly  his  own  business,  subjed  to  nobody's 
scrutiny,  or  inquiry,  or  interference.  The  physi- 
cian's public  obligation  is  in  part  prescribed  by 
the  laws  of  the  State  which  regulate  medical 
pradlice,  and  in  very  large  part  by  the  profes- 
sional codes  which  have  been  evolved  by  the 
profession  itself  for  its  own  guidance.  It  is  not 
the  amount  of  his  fee  that  the  overworked  do<5tor 
is  thinking  about  when  he  risks  his  own  health  in 
response  to  night  calls,  or  when  he  devotes  him- 
self to  some  especially  painful  or  difficult  case. 
Nor  is  it  a  mere  consideration  of  his  possible 
earnings  that  would  deter  him  from  seeking  com- 
fort and  safety  by  taking  his  family  to  Europe  at 
a  time  when  an  epidemic  had  broken  out  in  his 
own  neighborhood. 

I  need  not  allude  to  the  unselfish  devotion  to 
the  good  of  the  community  that  in  so  high  a  de- 
gree marks  the  lives  of  most  of  the  members 
[141 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

of  the  clerical  profession,  for  this  is  evident 
to  all  observant  persons. 

On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  too  clearly 
perceived  that  there  is  nothing  in  the  disinter- 
e^edness,  and  in  the  obligation  to  render  public  ser- 
vice charaderizing  professional  life  that  amounts 
to  unnatural  self-denial  or  painful  renunciation,  — 
unless  in  some  extreme  and  individual  cases.  On 
the  contrary,  professional  life  at  its  be^  offers  a 
great  advantage  in  so  far  as  it  permits  a  man  to 
think  firil  of  the  v^ork  he  is  doing  and  the  social 
service  he  is  rendering,  rather  than  of  pecuniary 
reward.  I  have  myself  on  more  thaui  one  occa- 
sion pointed  out  to  young  men  the  greater  pros- 
pedl  for  happiness  in  life  that  comes  with  the 
choice  of  a  calling  in  which  the  work  itself  pri- 
marily focuses  the  attention,  and  in  which  the 
pecuniary  reward  comes  as  an  incident  rather 
than  as  the  conscious  and  diredt  result  of  a  given 
effort. 

The  greatest  pleasure  in  work  is  that  which 
[151 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

comes  from  the  trained  and  regulated  exercise  of 
the  faculty  of  imagination.  In  the  condudl  of 
every  law  case  this  faculty  has  abundant  oppor- 
tunity, as  it  also  has  in  the  efforts  of  the  physi- 
cian to  aid  nature  in  the  re^oration  of  health  and 
vigor  in  the  individual,  or  in  the  sanitary  pro- 
tection of  the  community.  I  hope  I  have  made 
clear  this  point:  that  pecuniary  success,  even  in 
large  measure,  in  the  work  of  a  professional  man, 
may  be  entirely  compatible  with  disintere^ed 
devotion  to  a  kind  of  work  that  makes  for  the 
public  weal,  while  it  is  also  worthy  of  pursuit 
for  its  own  sake,  and  brings  content  and  even 
happiness  in  the  doing.  And  it  is  clear  enough, 
in  the  case  of  a  professional  man,  that  he  is  false 
to  his  profession  and  to  his  plain  obligations  if 
he  shows  himself  to  be  ruled  by  the  anti-social 
spirit;  that  is  to  say,  if  he  considers  himself  ab- 
solved from  any  duties  towards  the  community 
about  him;  thinks  that  the  practice  of  his  pro- 
fession is  a  private  affair  for  his  own  profit  and 
[16] 


THE     BUSINESS      CAREER 

advantage,  and  holds  that  he  has  done  his  whole 
duty  when  he  has  escaped  liability  for  malpradice 
or  disbarment. 

But  the  three  olde^  and  be^  recognized  pro- 
fessions no  longer  ^nd  alone,  in  the  carnation 
of  our  higher  educational  authorities  and  of  the 
intelligent  public.  In  a  democracy  like  ours, 
with  a  con^antly  advancing  conception  of  what 
is  involved  in  education  for  citizenship  and  for 
participation  in  every  individual  fundion  of  the 
social  and  economic  life,  the  work  of  the  teacher 
comes  to  be  recognized  as  professional  in  the 
higher  sense.  Teaching,  indeed,  seems  de^ed 
in  the  near  future  to  become  the  very  foremo^ 
of  all  the  professions.  This  recognition  vsdll 
come  when  the  idea  takes  full  possession  of  the 
public  mind  that  the  chief  task  of  each  genera- 
tion is  to  train  the  next  one,  and  to  transmit 
such  stores  of  knowledge  and  useful  experience 
as  it  has  received  from  its  predecessors  or  has 
evolved  for  itself. 

[17] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 
I  ^^^s^i^^^^^^^ 

It  is  obvious  enough  that  the  work  of  the 
teacher  gives  room  for  the  play  of  the  loftier 
ideals,  and  that  its  fundions  are  essentially  public 
and  disintere^ed.  But  there  are  other  callings, 
such  as  those  of  the  architect  and  engineer,  which 
have  also  come  to  be  spoken  of  as  professional 
in  their  nature.  Their  kinship  to  the  older  pro- 
fessions has  been  more  readily  recognized  by  the 
men  of  conservative  university  traditions,  because 
much  of  the  preparation  for  these  callings  can 
advantageously  be  of  an  academic  sort.  Archi- 
tedure  in  its  hi^orical  aspeds  is  closely  asso- 
ciated with  the  ^udy  of  classical  periods;  while 
the  profession  of  the  engineer  relates  itself  to  the 
immemorial  university  devotion  to  mathematics. 
And  in  like  manner  the  man  who  for  pradical 
purposes  becomes  a  chemi^  or  an  eledrician 
would  be  easily  admitted  by  President  Eliot,  for 
example,  to  the  favored  fellowship  of  the  pro- 
fessional classes  for  the  reason,  fir^,  of  the  dis- 
ciplinary and  liberalizing  nature  of  the  ^udies 
1181 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 
»==  =1 

that  underlie  his  calling,  and,  in  the  second 
place,  of  the  public  and  social  aspeds  of  the 
fundlions  he  fulfils  in  the  pursuit  of  his  vocation. 
The  architedl,  the  civil  or  mechanical  or 
eledlrical  engineer,  and  the  chemi^,  as  well  as 
the  professional  teacher,  the  trained  librarian,  or 
the  journali^  vv^ho  carries  on  his  w^ork  with  due 
sense  of  its  almo^  unequaled  pubKc  duties  and 
responsibilities, — all  these  are  now  admitted  by 
didla  of  our  foremo^  authorities  to  a  place  equal 
with  the  law,  medicine,  and  the  mini^ry  in  the 
lift  of  the  professions;  that  is  to  say,  in  the  group 
of  callings  which,  under  my  definition,  are  dis- 
tinguished especially  by  their  public  chara<5ler. 
And  in  this  group,  of  course,  should  be  included 
politicians,  legislators,  and  public  adminiftrators 
in  so  far  as  they  serve  the  public  intereils 
reputably  and  in  a  professional  spirit.  Nor 
should  we  forget  such  special  classes  of  public 
servants  as  the  officers  of  the  army  and  navy; 
while  nobody  will  deny  public  charader  and 
[19] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

professional  rank  to  men  of  letters,  arti^s,  musi- 
cians and  adtors. 

In  all  these  callings  it  is  demanded  not  merely 
that  men  shall  be  subjecft  to  the  private  rules  of 
conducfl, —  that  they  muil  not  cheat,  or  lie,  or 
^eal,  or  bear  false  witness,  or  be  bad  neighbors 
or  undesirable  citizens, —  but  in  addition  and  in 
the  mo^  important  sense  that  they  shall  be  sub- 
\e&.  to  positive  ethical  ^andards  that  relate  to  the 
welfare  of  the  whole  community,  and  that  require 
of  them  the  exercise  of  a  true  public  spirit. 

The  man  of  public  spirit  is  he  who  is  able  at 
a  given  moment,  under  certain  conditions,  to  set 
the  public  welfare  before  his  own.  Further- 
more, he  is  a  man  who  is  trained  and  habitu- 
ated to  that  point  of  view,  so  that  he  is  not 
aware  of  any  pangs  of  martyrdom  or  even  of 
any  exercise  of  self-denial  when  he  is  concern- 
ing himself  about  the  public  good  even  to  his 
own  momentary  inconvenience  or  disadvantage. 
Public  spirit  is  that  ^ate  or  habit  of  mind  which 
[20] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 


leads  a  man  to  care  greatly  for  the  general  wel- 
fare. It  is  this  ethical  quality  that  to  my  mind 
should  be  the  great  aim  and  objedl  of  training. 

On  its  be^  side,  what  we  term  the  profes- 
sional spirit  is,  then,  very  closely  related  to  this 
commendable  quality  in  men  of  a  right  intel- 
lectual and  moral  development  that  we  call  pub- 
lic spirit.  The  chief  difference  lies  in  this:  that 
whereas  all  professional  men  may  be  public- 
spirited  in  a  general  sense,  each  professional  man 
should,  in  addition,  manife^  a  special  and  tech- 
nical sort  of  public  spirit  that  pertains  to  the 
nature  of  his  calling.  The  lawyer  should  have 
a  particularly  keen  regard  for  the  equitable  ad- 
mini^ration  of  ju^ce.  The  dodor  should  truly 
care  for  the  physical  wholesomeness  and  well- 
being  of  the  community.  The  clergyman  should 
be  alive  to  those  things  that  concern  the  reditude 
and  purity  of  life.  The  journali^  should  be 
willing  to  make  sacrifices  for  the  sake  of  the 
enlightenment  of  public  opinion;  and  so  on. 
[21] 


THE  BUSINESS  CAREER 
Is^-s— --^--------^^^^^^ 

Without  either  the  general  or  the  technical  mani- 
festations of  public  spirit,  in  short,  the  so-called 
professional  man  is  a  reproach  to  his  guild  and 
a  failure  in  his  neighborhood. 

Now,  what  has  all  this  to  do  with  the  moral 
^andards  that  belong  to  the  business  career  as 
di^inguished  from  the  professional  life?  My 
answer  mu^  be  very  clear  and  very  dire<5t  if  I 
am  to  ju^fy  so  long  an  analysis  of  the  ethical 
characterises  of  the  professions  themselves.  I 
have  merely  used  the  time-honored  method  of 
trying  to  lead  you  by  way  of  familiar,  admitted 
points  of  view  to  certain  points  of  view  that,  if 
not  wholly  new,  are  at  lea^  less  familiar  and  less 
widely  recognized.  The  whole  thesis  that  I  wish 
to  develop  is  simply  this:  that  however  it  may 
have  been  in  business  life  in  times  pa^  and  gone, 
there  has  been  such  a  tremendous  change  in  the 
organization  and  methods  of  the  business  world 
and  also  in  the  relative  importance  of  the  func- 
tions of  the  business  man  in  the  community,  that 
[22] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

the  di^dions  which  have  hitherto  set  apart  the 
professional  classes  have  become  obsolete  for  all 
pradical  purposes  in  many  branches  and  depart- 
ments of  the  business  world. 

At  lea^,  the  work  of  the  responsible  leaders 
is  no  longer  to  be  regarded  as  essentially  a  thing 
of  private  concern  and  free  from  public  responsi- 
bility. If  the  business  world  is  not  charader- 
ized,  fir^,  by  public  spirit  and  a  sense  of  public 
duty  in  general,  and,  second,  by  the  special  and 
technical  sense  of  public  obligation  that  pertains 
to  particular  kinds  or  departments  of  business 
adivity,  then  it  is  falling  short  of  its  be^  oppor- 
tunities and  evading  its  providential  tasks.  It  is 
for  the  modem  business  world  to  recognize  the 
conditions  that  have  in  the  fulness  of  time  given 
it  so  great  a  power  and  so  dominant  a  position; 
and  it  mu^  not  shirk  the  responsibilities  that  be- 
long to  it  as  fully  and  truly  as  they  belong  to  any 
of  the  professions. 

I  hold,  then,  that  the  young  man  of  education 
1231 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 


and  opportunity  who  proposes  to  go  into  a  busi- 
ness career  enters  it  not  merely  with  a  low  and  un- 
worthy ^andard  if  his  sole  motive  and  objedt  be  to 
acquire  wealth,  but  he  also  enters  it  in  disregard 
of  the  ideas  that  fill  the  minds  of  the  be^  mod- 
em business  leaders.  He  shows  a  pitiable  lack  of 
appreciation  of  the  elements  that  are  to  constitute 
real  business  success  in  the  period  within  which 
his  own  career  mu^  fall. 

Let  us  consider,  briefly,  the  evolution  of  our 
present-day  economic  or  business  life,  and  then 
take  note  of  the  necessary  place  that  particular 
classes  of  business  men  mu^  hold  in  the  ^rudture 
of  our  society.  I,  for  my  part,  look  upon  this  la^ 
century  of  economic  progress, — under  the  sway 
of  what  is  often  called  "capitalism"  as  a  term  of 
reproach,  —  as  an  immeasurable  boon  to  man- 
kind. It  began  with  the  practical  utilization  of 
several  great  inventions,  notably  that  of  ^eam 
power,  which  broke  up  the  old  household  and 
village  indu^ries,  gave  us  the  modern  fadtory 
[24] 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 

syftem,  and  along  with  the  development  of  rail- 
roads gave  us  the  modern  indu^rial  city.  This 
new^  and  revolutionizing  sy^em  of  industry  and 
business  forced  its  way  into  a  world  of  poverty, 
of  disease,  of  depraved  public  life,  of  low  morals 
in  the  main  pervading  the  community,  —  a  world 
for  the  mo^  part  of  class  diilindlions  in  which 
the  lot  even  of  the  privileged  few  was  not  a  very 
noble  or  enviable  one,  while  the  ^ate  of  the  va^ 
majority  was  little  better  than  that  of  serfs. 

Many  writers  have  sought  to  throw  a  charm 
and  a  glamour  over  that  old  condition  of  eco- 
nomic life  and  society  that  followed  the  break-up 
of  feudalism  and  that  preceded  the  creation  of 
our  new  political  and  indu^rial  institutions.  But 
with  some  mitigations  it  was  for  moft  people  a 
period,  as  I  have  said,  of  squalor,  disease,  and 
degradation.  The  fundamental  trouble  could  be 
summed  up  in  the  one  word,  poverty.  The  mis- 
sion of  the  new  indu^rial  system,  for  the  mo^  part 
unconscious  and  unrecognized,  was  to  transform 
[25] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

the  world  by  abolishing  the  reign  of  poverty. 
Doubtless  it  would  be  desirable  if  the  improve- 
ment of  conditions,  material  and  spiritual,  could 
make  progress  with  exadly  even  pace  on  some 
perfedly  symmetrical  plan.  But  hi^ory  shows 
us  that  the  forward  social  movement  has  pro- 
ceeded fir^  in  one  asped,  then  in  another,  on 
lines  so  tangential,  often  so  zigzag,  that  it  is  difii- 
cult  until  one  gets  di^ance  enough  for  perspedtive, 
to  see  that  any  true  progress  has  been  made  at  all. 
Thus,  the  modem  industrial  system,  which 
found  the  conditions  of  poverty,  disease,  and 
hardship  prevalent,  seemed  for  quite  a  long  time, 
in  its  rude  breaking  up  of  old  relations  and  its 
ruthless  adherence  to  certciin  newly  proclaimed 
principles,  to  have  brought  matters  from  bad  to 
worse.  The  squalor  and  poverty  of  the  village 
of  hand-loom  weavers  seemed  only  intensified  in 
the  new  indu^rial  towns  to  which  the  weavers 
flocked  from  their  deserted  hamlets.  Manu- 
fadurers  were  doing  business  under  the  fierce^ 
[26] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

and  moit  unregulated  competition.  Economics 
were  demonilrating  their  "law  of  supply  and 
demand"  and  their  "iron  law  of  wages**  as 
capable  in  themselves  of  regulating  all  the  con- 
ditions and  relations  of  business  life.  Epidemics 
raged  and  depravity  prevailed  in  the  new  fadory 
centers. 

But  things  were  not,  in  reality,  going  from  bad 
to  worse.  The  beginnings  of  a  better  order  had 
to  be  based  upon  two  things:  fir^  and  foremo^, 
the  sheer  creation  of  capital;  second,  the  disci- 
pline and  training  of  workers.  In  the  fir^  phases, 
the  new  modem  business  period  had  to  be  a 
period  of  produdion.  There  had  got  to  be 
developed  the  in^rumentalities  for  the  creation 
of  wealth.  Until  the  industrial  sy^em  had  raised 
up  its  class  of  efficient  workers  and  had  created 
its  great  mass  of  capital  for  produdive  purposes, 
there  could  be  no  supply  of  cheap  goods;  and 
without  an  abundant  and  cheap  output  there 
could  be  no  possible  diffusion  of  economic 
[27] 


THE  BUSINESS  CAREER 
[=^— ^^^^^^^^^ 

benefits;  in  other  words,  no  marked  ameliora- 
tion of  the  prevailing  poverty. 

It  required  some  development  of  wealth  to 
lift  our  modern  peoples  out  of  a  poverty  too 
grinding  and  too  debasing  for  intellectual  or 
moral  progress.  It  is  tme  that  the  fadtory 
towns,  created  as  they  have  all  been  by  modem 
indu^rial  conditions  during  the  pait  century, 
brought  their  di^ncftive  evils.  There  was  over- 
crowding in  ill -built  tenement  houses;  and  long 
hours  for  women  and  children  in  the  fadlories. 
Yet  with  these  and  many  other  disadvantages, 
the  new  indu^rial  sy^em  made  for  discipline  and 
for  intelligence,  and  above  all  for  a  new  kind  of 
solidarity  and  for  a  sense  of  brotherhood  among 
workers. 

In  due  time  the  woril  evils  began  to  be  miti- 
gated, largely  through  the  application  of  those 
very  methods  of  organization  which  had  char- 
aderized  the  new  kind  of  industry  itself.  Thus 
for  men  who  had  applied  ^eam  power  to 
[281 


THE  BUSINESS  CAREER 
f^^ggggg  — — ^ 

manufadturing  and  had  begun  to  build  railroads, 
it  was  soon  perceived  to  be  a  matter  not  only  of 
sanitary  and  social  service,  but  of  pecuniary 
profit,  to  provide  water  supplies,  public  illumina- 
tion, and  other  conveniences  to  the  crowded  city 
dwellers.  Moreover,  with  the  progress  of  in- 
du^ry  and  the  development  of  railroads  and 
^eam  navigation,  produdion  and  trade  took  on 
an  ever-increasing  volume. 

Then  the  world  began  to  be  less  poor.  There 
had  been  no  rich  men  in  the  modern  sense,  and 
of  course  no  such  thing  as  capitalized  corpora- 
tions for  produdion.  The  richer  man  in  the 
United  States  at  the  time  of  his  death,  a  little 
more  than  a  hundred  years  ago,  was  George 
Washington,  with  his  land  and  his  slaves;  and 
so  in  England  and  France  there  were  no  rich 
men  in  the  modem  sense  —  that  is  to  say,  no 
men  who  controlled  great  masses  of  productive 
capital.  The  men  of  wealth  were  those  who 
held  landed  elates.  The  chief  business  of  all 
129] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

countries  was  agriculture.  The  capitaliilic  sys- 
tem in  indu^iy  and  trade  exited  in  its  rudiments 
and  in  limited  measure;  but  all  its  great  achieve- 
ments were  yet  to  be  wrought. 

All  modern  business  life,  then,  is  the  result  of 
this  growth  of  produdive  capital,  and  its  appli- 
cation and  con^ant  reapplication  to  the  pro- 
duction of  wealth.  It  made  its  way  by  virtue  of 
cui  intense  individual  initiative  and  a  fierce  com- 
petitive druggie.  But  unlovely  as  were  these 
things,  many  of  their  phases  were  necessary  at  a 
certain  ^age.  It  was  this  fierce  competition  that 
compelled  capital  to  pay  the  loweS  possible 
.wages  in  order  to  market  cheap  goods.  But 
the  same  situation  Emulated  the  use,  one  after 
another,  of  new  labor-saving  inventions  in  order 
to  increase  the  per  capita  produdivity.  This  pro- 
cess was  attended  by  the  higher  efficiency  of  the 
worker  and  an  increase  in  his  earning  capacity. 
As  his  position  began  to  improve,  the  worker 
gained  some  hope  and  cheer;  and  he  and  his 
1301 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

fellows  began  to  organize,  with  the  result  that 
both  wages  and  conditions  of  labor  were  Readily 
improved,  and  the  workman  began  to  attain  ap- 
proximately his  share  of  benefits. 

All  this  is  a  familiar  ^ory,  although  the  depth 
of  its  significance  is  beyond  the  compass  of  any 
living  human  intelligence.  It  is  easy  to  say  in  a 
glib  sentence  that  the  amount  of  wealth  pro- 
duced every  few  years  nowadays  is  equal  to  all 
the  accumulated  wealth  of  all  the  centuries  dovm 
to  the  early  part  of  the  nineteenth ;  but  the  social 
meaning  of  so  great  a  change  baffles  all  attempt 
at  full  comprehension. 

The  competitive  syitem,  which  had  been  es- 
sential to  the  launching  of  this  modern  period  of 
production,  and  which  had  given  to  it  so  much 
of  its  irresi^ble  momentum,  at  length  brought 
the  economic  organization  to  a  point  of  develop- 
ment where,  in  some  fields  of  produdion,  it 
was  no  longer  a  benefit.  The  accumulation  of 
capital  had  become  so  large, —  and  with  new 
[31] 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 

inventions  the  possible  output  had  become  so 
abundant,  that  it  was  well  nigh  impossible  to 
Iru^  to  the  blind  working  of  demand  and  supply 
to  regulate  things  in  a  beneficial  way.  It  began 
to  dawn  on  men*s  minds  that  a  successful  period 
of  competitive  economic  life  might  lead  to  a 
period  largely  dominated  by  non-competitive  and 
cooperative  principles. 

Tlie  superior  possibilities  of  this  neweft  regime, 
along  with  its  many  difficulties  and  perplexities, 
began  to  captivate  the  minds,  not  merely  of  theo- 
retical ^dents  and  onlookers,  but,  even  more,  of 
great  makers  of  industry  and  productive  capital. 
It  began  to  be  seen  that  in  place  of  blind  and 
fierce  competition  as  a  regulator  of  prices  and  as 
an  equalizer  of  supply  and  demand,  there  might 
come  to  be  gradually  substituted  some  more  con- 
sciously scientific  methods  of  business  admini^ra- 
tion  and  of  the  adjustment  of  production  to  the 
needs  of  the  market. 

Furthermore,  with  the  development  of  business 
[321 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

on  the  great  scale,  capital  had  become  relatively 
abundant  and  cheap,  while,  on  the  other  hand, 
labor  was  becoming  relatively  expensive  and  exact- 
ing. It  was  evident  that  the  modem  sy^em  of 
indu^ry  had  passed  through  its  earlier  period  to 
one  of  comparative  maturity;  and  that  the  prob- 
lem of  wealth  produdion  was  no  longer  so  exclu- 
sively the  pressing  one,  but  that  the  problems  of 
di^ribution  were  demanding  more  attention. 

How  to  organize  business  life  on  a  basis  at 
once  ^able  and  efficient;  how  to  see  that  capital 
was  assured  of  a  normal  even  though  a  declining 
percentage  of  dividends;  while  labor  should  be 
rewarded  according  to  its  capacity  and  desert, — 
were  problems  which  took  on  pubUc  rather  than 
private  aspeds.  And  when  the  business  world 
began  to  face  these  problems  with  the  conscious- 
ness that  they  were  to  be  met,  it  had  virtually 
passed  over  from  the  lower  plane  of  moral  and 
social  responsibility  to  the  higher  plane  where 
what  the  direding  minds  do  or  decide  is  not 
[33] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 


measured  solely  by  immediate  results  in  money- 
getting,  but  also  by  the  teil  of  larger  social  and 
public  utilities. 

Although  these  conditions  are  not  novel  ones, 
cind  are  therefore  not  difficult  to  grasp  even  vv^hen 
^ated  in  general  terms,  it  is  ^ill  true  that  the 
concrete  often  helps  to  make  the  point  appear 
more  pertinent  Take  then  the  railroad  busi- 
ness as  it  is  now  shaping  itself,  in  comparison 
with  its  conditions  and  methods  twenty  or  thirty 
years  ago.  The  railroads  have  always  exited 
by  virtue  of  charters  which  gave  them  a  quasi- 
public  character,  and  have  always  been  theo- 
retically subjedl  to  certain  old  principles  of 
English  common  law  under  which  the  public 
or  common  carrier,  like  the  innkeeper,  performs 
a  fundion  not  wholly  private  in  its  nature. 
Nevertheless,  in  its  earlier  ^ages  the  railroad 
sy^em  of  this  country  was  in  large  part  con- 
^ru(5led  and  operated  by  its  projecflors  with 
no  sense  whatever  of  responsibility  for  their 
[341 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 


performance  of  public  fundions,  but  with  the 
idea  that  they  were  carrying  on  their  own  private 
business  in  which  interference  on  the  part  of  the 
public  was  to  be  avoided  and  resented.  They 
fought  the  railroad  codes  of  State  legislatures  in 
the  federal  courts ;  they  made  oppressive  rates  to 
give  value  to  new  issues  of  watered  ^ock;  they 
discriminated  in  favor  of  one  city  and  again^ 
another;  by  a  syilem  of  secret  rebates  they 
made  different  terms  with  every  shipper,  thus 
enabling  one  merchant  or  manufacflurer  to  de- 
^roy  his  competitor;  and  they  pursued  in  gen- 
eral a  career  at  lea^  anti-social  in  its  spirit  and 
false  and  short-sighted  in  its  principles. 

A  profound  change  —  would  that  it  were 
already  complete !  —  is  coming  about  in  this  great 
field  of  transportation  business.  It  is  perceived 
that  many  of  the  evils  to  which  I  have  alluded 
were  incident  to  the  speculative  periods  of  con- 
^rudion  and  development  in  a  new  country. 
The  better  leaders  in  the  business  of  railway 
[351 


THE  BUSINESS  CAREER 
I— ^^^^■^— "i^^^^^i^^^gl 

admini^ration  now  see  clearly  that  it  is  the  duty 
of  the  railroads  to  work  with  and  for  the  public 
and  not  again^  it.  The  railroads  are  gradually 
passing  out  of  the  hands  of  the  ^ockjobbers  and 
speculators,  into  the  control  of  trained  adminis- 
trators. It  is  to  be  remembered  that  in  a  coun- 
try like  ours,  the  larger  single  branch  of  organ- 
ized admini^ration  is  that  of  the  railroads.  We 
have  reached  a  point  where  their  relations  to  all 
the  elaborate  intere^s  of  the  community  are  such 
that  their  public  character  becomes  more  and 
more  pronounced  and  evident.  It  was  only  the 
other  day  that  a  brilliant  railway  admini^rator, 
Mr.  Charles  S.  Mellen,  recently  president  of  the 
Northern  Pacific,  and  now  president  of  the  New 
York,  New  Haven  &  Hartford  sy^em,  made 
some  ^atements  in  an  address  to  the  business 
men  of  Hartford  at  a  Board  of  Trade  meeting. 
With  much  else  of  the  same  import,  he  made 
the  following  significant  remarks: 

"If  corporations  are  to  continue  to  do  their 
[36] 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 


work  as  they  are  be^  fitted  to,  those  qualities  in 
their  representatives  that  have  resulted  in  the 
present  prejudice  againil  them  mu^  be  relegated 
to  the  background. 

"They  mu^  come  out  into  the  open  and  see 
and  be  seen.  They  muft  take  the  public  into 
their  confidence  and  ask  for  w^hat  they  w^ant  and 
no  more,  and  then  be  prepared  to  explain  satis- 
fadorily  vv^hat  advantage  will  accrue  to  the  pub- 
lic if  they  are  given  their  desires,  for  they  are 
permitted  to  exift  not  that  they  may  make  money 
solely,  but  that  they  may  effedlively  serve  those 
from  whom  they  derive  their  power.  Publicity 
should  rule  now.  Publicity,  and  not  secrecy, 
will  win  hereafter,  and  laws  will  be  con^rued 
by  their  intent  and  not  killed  by  their  letter; 
otherwise  public  utiKties  will  be  owned  and 
operated  by  the  public  which  created  them,  even 
though  the  service  be  less  efficient  and  the  result 
less  satisfactory  from  a  financial  ^andpoint." 

Mr.  Mellen's  ilate  of  mind  is  that  which 
[37] 


439781 


THE  BUSINESS  CAREER 
l--^s— --^^-------^^^^^^ 

ought  to  prevail  among  all  the  managers  of  cor- 
porations which  enjoy  public  franchises  and  per- 
form fundions  fundamental  to  the  welfare  of  the 
community.  There  will  at  times  be  prejudice 
and  passion  on  the  part  of  the  public,  and  unfair 
demands  will  be  made.  We  shall  not  see  the 
attainment  of  ideal  conditions  in  the  management 
or  the  public  relations  of  any  great  business  cor- 
porations in  our  day.  But  the  time  has  come 
when  any  intelligent  and  capable  young  man  who 
chooses  to  enter  the  service  of  a  railroad  or  of 
some  other  great  corporation  may  rightly  feel  that 
he  becomes  part  of  a  sy^em  whose  operation  is 
vital  to  the  public  welfare.  He  may  further  feel 
that  there  is  room  in  such  a  calling  for  all  his 
intelligence  and  for  the  exercise  and  growth  of 
all  the  be^  sentiments  of  his  moral  nature. 

In  the  va^  mechanism  of  modern  business  the 

con^rudive  imagination  may  find  its  full  play; 

and  the  desire  to  be  of  service  to  one's  fellow 

men  in  a  spirit  reasonably  disinterested  may  find 

[38] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

opportunity  to  satisfy  itself  every  day.  Under 
these  circum^ances  there  is  no  reason  why  rail- 
way admini^ration  should  not  take  on  the  same 
ethical  ^andards  as  belong  rightly  to  governmental 
admini^ration,  to  educational  admini^ration,  or 
to  the  be^  professional  life. 

The  same  thing  is  clearly  true  when  one  con- 
siders nowadays  the  delicate  and  important  func- 
tions of  the  world  of  banking  and  finance.  The 
old-fashioned  money-changer  and  the  usurer  of 
earlier  periods  were  regarded  as  the  very  antith- 
esis of  men  engaged  in  honorable  mercantile 
life,  and  especially  of  those  who  possess  a  social 
spirit  and  the  desire  to  be  useful  members  of  the 
community.  But  in  these  days  the  banks  are 
not  merely  private  money-making  in^tutions,  but 
have  public  fundions  that  admittedly  affedl  the 
whole  social  organism,  from  the  government  itself 
down  to  the  humbleil  laborer.  They  mu^  con- 
cern themselves  about  the  soundness  and  the  suffi- 
ciency of  the  monetary  circulation;  they  muil 
[39] 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 


protecft  the  credit  and  fo^er  the  welfare  of  hon- 
e^  merchants  and  manufadurers ;  they  mu^  co- 
operate in  critical  times  to  help  one  another,  and 
thus  to  su^ain  the  public  and  private  credit  and 
avert  commercial  disa^er ;  they  mu^  at  all  haz- 
ards protedt  the  savings  of  the  poor.  Thus  the 
banks,  Hke  the  railroads  and  many  other  corpo- 
rate enterprises,  are  quasi-public  affairs,  in  the 
condudl  of  which  the  public  obligation  grows 
ever  clearer  and  ilronger. 

We  are  not  at  heart — in  this  splendid  coun- 
try of  ours  —  engaged  in  a  mad  druggie  and  race 
for  wealth.  We  are  engaged  rather  in  the  greater 
effort  ever  made  in  the  world  for  the  upbuilding 
of  a  higher  civilization.  To  avow  that  this  civ- 
ilization mu^  re^  upon  a  physical  and  material 
basis,  —  that  is  to  say,  upon  a  high  development 
of  our  produdive  capacity  and  upon  a  con^ant 
improvement  in  our  processes  of  di^ribution  and 
exchange,  —  is  not,  on  the  other  hand,  to  confess 
that  our  civilization  is  materiali^ic  in  its  nature 
140] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

or  in  its  aims.  I  was  very  glad,  the  other  day, 
to  read  the  wholesome  and  underSanding  words 
of  a  di^nguished  Bo^on  clergyman  who  is  ju^ 
now  coming  to  New  York  to  take  charge  of  an 
important  parish.  He  declared  that  this  nation 
was  founded  on  an  ideal,  and  that  the  mo^ 
powerful  influences  in  its  life  today  are  working 
toward  noble  ideals.  The  moral  and  spiritual 
tone  of  the  country,  he  asserted,  is  higher  than 
ever,  in  spite  of  the  accidents  of  wealth  and 
poverty.  He  declared  that  the  great  ho^  of 
men  and  women  who  cherish  our  ideals  will 
continue  to  ^amp  idealism  upon  the  minds  and 
hearts  of  our  youth,  and  that  they  in  turn  "will 
convert  wealth  to  the  service  of  ideals." 

Such  views  are  not  merely  the  expressions  of 
a  comfortable  optimi^.  They  are  true  to  the 
fads  of  our  current  progress.  There  are  vail 
portions  of  this  country  today  in  which  the  en- 
terprising business  man  who  can  succeed  in 
selling  to  the  farmers  an  hone^  and  effedive 
[411 


THE  BUSINESS  CAREER 
I  ^ 

commercial  fertilizer  is  the  be^  possible  mission- 
ary of  idealism, —  is,  in  fad,  a  veritable  angel 
for  the  spread  of  sweetness  and  light.  There 
are  regions  where  the  capitali^  or  the  company 
that  will  build  a  cotton  mill  or  some  other  kind 
of  fadory  is  rescuing  whole  communities  from 
degradation.  It  is  poverty  that  has  kept  the 
South  so  backward,  and  it  is  poverty  alone  that 
explains  the  illiteracy  and  the  lawlessness  not 
merely  of  the  Kentucky  mountains,  but  of  great 
areas  in  other  States  as  well.  Good  schools  can- 
not be  supported  in  regions  like  those,  for  the 
palpable  reason  that  the  taxable  wealth  of  an 
entire  school  di^rid  cannot  yield  enough  to  pay 
the  salary  of  a  teacher.  But  when  modern 
business  invades  those  uplands,  utilizes  the  water- 
power  now  wa^ed,  opens  the  mines,  builds  cot- 
ton fadlories  or  foundries,  the  situation  changes 
almo^  as  if  by  magic. 

There  will,  indeed,  ensue  a  brief  period  of 
di^urbance  due  to  changed  social  conditions, — 
[421 


THE      BUSINESS      CAREER 

to  women  and  children  in  fadories,  and  other 
things  of  incidental  or  serious  disadvantage.  But, 
as  again^  a  survival  of  the  sort  of  life  that 
was  widely  prevalent  a  century  or  two  ago, 
all  the  phenomena  of  our  modem  indu^rial  life 
make  their  appearance,  in  full  development. 
The  one -room  cabin  gives  place  to  the  little 
house  of  several  rooms.  There  is  rapid  diffusion 
of  those  minor  comforts  and  agencies  which 
make  for  self-respedt  and  personal  and  family 
advancement.  Hie  advent  of  capital,  that  is  to 
say,  of  taxable  property,  is  speedily  followed  by 
the  good  schoolhouse  and  the  good  teacher. 

It  is  in^rudive  to  note  the  transformation  that 
is  thus  taking  place  in  one  county  after  another 
of  the  Carolinas,  or  Georgia,  or  others  of  the 
Southern  States,  because  the  conditions  make  it 
possible  to  witness  within  a  single  decade  the 
triumph  of  those  business  forces  which,  while 
they  have  even  more  truly  and  completely  trans- 
formed the  prosperous  parts  of  America  and 
[431 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

I  BB^gi^^^ 

Europe,  have  operated  more  gradually  through 
longer  periods,  and  therefore  in  a  less  easily 
perceived  and  dramatic  fashion. 

Our  modern  ideals  have  required,  not  the 
refinement  and  the  culture  of  the  seled  few,  but 
the  uplifting  and  progress  of  the  multitude.  This 
could  only  be  possible  through  a  general  devel- 
opment of  wealth,  so  va^  in  comparison  with 
what  had  previously  exited  as  to  con^itute  the 
mo^  highly  revolutionary  fad  in  the  hi^ory  of 
human  civilization  and  progress.  The  man, 
therefore,  who  has  a  clear  perception  of  those 
laws  of  mind  and  of  society  under  which  mod- 
ern economic  forces  have  been  set  at  work,  can- 
not for  a  moment  think  that  the  end  and  outcome 
of  this  modern  business  sy^em  is  a  new  kind  of 
human  bondage,  "the  rich  growing  richer  and 
the  poor  growing  poorer";  or  that  it  can  mean 
any  such  thing  as  the  elevation  of  property  at 
the  expense  of  manhood. 

Even  if  it  were  a  part  of  my  subjecSt  to 
[44] 


THE     BUSINESS      CAREER 

discuss  the  growth  of  va^  individual  fortunes  as 
an  incident  of  this  modern  development  of  wealth, 
which  it  is  not,  there  would  be  no  time  for  more 
than  a  passing  allusion.  And  in  making  such  an 
allusion,  I  might  be  content  to  call  attention  to 
my  earlier  didlum,  that  progress  is  not  upon 
diredl  lines,  but  tangential  or  zigzag.  When  the 
fadlory  appears  on  the  Piedmont  slopes  of  the 
Appalachian  country,  it  may  indeed  make  a 
fortune  for  the  missionary  of  civilization  who 
planted  it  there.  But  meanwhile  it  has  given 
the  whole  neighborhood  its  fir^  chance  to  relate 
itself  to  the  civilized  world.  I  am  content  for 
the  present  to  leave  that  neighborhood  in  posses- 
sion of  its  opportunities,  serenely  confident  that 
it  will  in  due  time  work  out  its  own  completer 
de^iny. 

When  the  capitali^  has  retired  from  the  scene 

of  his  exploitation,  will  the  day  arrive  when  the 

regenerated  neighborhood  will  own  that  fadlory, 

and  others,  too,  for  itself?    Very  likely.    In  any 

[45] 


THE  BUSINESS  CAREER 
n^^^^=»—  =1 

case,  the  neighborhood  has  been  emancipated 
from  its  wor^  disadvantages. 

In  short,  I  have  little  doubt  but  that  the  further 
progress  of  our  civilization  w^ill  give  effed  to  cer- 
tain economic  law^s  and  tendencies,  and  to  certain 
social  rules  and  principles,  that  will  make  for  a 
higher  measure  of  equality  in  the  di^ribution  of 
realized  w^ealth.  Meanwhile  wherever  a  practical 
^ep  can  be  taken  to  remedy  an  evil,  let  us  do 
what  we  can  to  promote  that  ^ep.  Let  us  recog- 
nize the  already  great  possibilities  for  useful  par- 
ticipation in  the  social  and  public  life  that  belong 
to  an  honorable  business  career. 

From  the  ^andpoint  of  the  intelledlual  intere^ 
of  the  young  man  going  into  business,  let  it  be 
borne  in  mind  that  there  are  scientific  principles 
underlying  every  branch  of  trade  or  commerce 
or  indu^ry,  and  that  there  is  almo^,  if  not  quite, 
as  much  room  for  the  delightful  play  of  the 
faculty  of  imagination  in  the  successful  condud 
of  a  soap  business  as  in  writing  poetry  or  in 
1461 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

making  ^atuary  groups  for  world's  fairs.  The 
cultivation  of  public  spirit  in  the  broad  sense, 
and  the  determination  to  be  an  all-round  good 
and  efficient  citizen  and  member  of  the  commu- 
nity, will  often  help  a  man  amcizingly  to  discem 
the  opportunities  for  usefulness  that  lie  in  the 
dire(5t  line  of  his  business  work.  The  more 
thoroughly  he  ^udies  underlying  principles  — 
whether  of  a  technical  sort  as  related  to  his  own 
trade,  or  of  a  general  sort  having  to  do  with  the 
organization  and  general  methods  of  commerce — 
the  less  likely  he  will  be  to  take  narrow  and  anti- 
social views  of  business  life.  The  high  develop- 
ment of  his  intelligence  in  relation  to  his  own 
work  will  show  him  the  value  in  his  business  — 
as  in  all  else  in  life  —  of  the  ^andard  thing,  the 
genuine  thing,  the  thing  that  will  bear  the  te^  as 
contra^ed  with  the  shoddy,  or  the  inferior,  or 
the  spurious. 

Our  technological  schools,  our  colleges  of  me- 
chanic arts,  our  in^tutes  of  agriculture  and  their 
147] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 


related  experiment  Nations, —  these  are  all  teach- 
ing us  many  valuable  objed-lessons  regarding 
the  way  in  which  the  wealth  of  the  individual 
and  that  of  the  community  can  both,  at  the  same 
time,  be  advanced  by  scientific  methods.  Thus 
it  is  coming  about  that  business  life  is  ever  more 
ready  to  welcome  the  moil  highly  trained  kinds 
of  intelligence,  inasmuch  as  it  is  perceived  that 
specialized  knowledge  is  henceforth  to  be  the 
mo^  valuable  commodity  that  a  man  can  possess. 
1  have  already  said  that  the  delicate  problems 
of  di^ribution  mu^  be  faced  ever  more  frankly 
and  liberally  by  the  modern  business  world. 
Thus,  those  who  control  capital,  or  admini^er 
capitalized  enterprises,  cannot  afford  any  longer 
to  be  without  a  knowledge  of  the  hi^ory  and 
significance  of  the  labor  movement.  We  should 
not  have  had  the  desperate  druggie  between  an- 
thracite coal  corporations  and  the  miners  in  Penn- 
sylvania, a  year  or  so  ago,  if  there  had  been  a 
full  understanding  on  the  part  of  the  capitali^s 
[48] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

of  the  honorable  and  valuable  nature  of  trade 
agreements,  and  particularly  of  the  hi^ory  of  the 
relations  of  capital  and  labor  in  the  bituminous 
coal  distrids  of  the  United  States.  I  am  speak- 
ing now  from  the  ^andpoint  of  the  business  man. 
There  is  much  to  be  said,  doubtless,  in  resped 
to  the  shortcomings  and  the  sometimes  fatuous 
and  even  suicidal  methods  of  the  labor  organiza- 
tions. But  for  the  modern  business  man  w^ho 
cares  to  take  his  place  influentially  in  commerce, 
in  social  life,  and  as  a  man  among  men  in  his 
city  or  his  commonwealth,  it  is  no  longer  ju^ifi- 
able  to  be  unfamiliar  with  the  labor  que^on  in 
its  economics  and  its  hi^ory. 

Herein  lies  one  great  service  that  the  univer- 
sity can  perform  (and  our  be^  colleges  and  uni- 
versities are  today  performing  it  wdth  marked 
intelligence  and  ability),  the  service,  namely,  of 
providing  very  liberal  courses  for  young  men  who 
expedl  to  go  into  business,  in  the  general  science 
of  economics,  in  the  hi^ory  of  modem  economic 
[49] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 

progress,  in  the  development  of  the  wage  sy^em, 
in  the  hi^ory  and  methods  of  organized  labor, 
and  in  very  much  else  that  helps  to  place  the  life 
of  a  pradical  man  of  business  affairs  upon  a 
broad  and  liberal  basis.  In  the  early  days  of 
our  hiilory  it  was  the  especial  fundion  of  the 
college  to  train  young  men  for  the  mini^ry.  In 
a  somewhat  later  period  it  was  notably  true  of 
in^itutions  like  Yale  and  Princeton  that  their 
training  seemed  to  fit  many  men  for  the  law  and 
for  ^atecraft.  We  had,  you  see,  passed  from 
that  theocratic  phase  of  colonial  New  England 
life  to  the  political  con^rudlive  period  of  our 
young  republic. 

But  we  have  been  passing  on  until  we  have 
emerged  in  a  great  and  transcendent  period  of 
commercial  expansion  and  scientific  discovery 
and  application.  It  is  a  hopeful  sign,  therefore, 
that  our  universities  are  finding  out  and  admitting 
the  demand  that  present-day  conditions  impose, 
and  are  training  many  men  in  the  pursuit  of 
[50] 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 

modern  science,  while  they  are  training  many 
others  in  the  underilanding  of  the  application  of 
social  and  economic  principles  to  modern  life. 
All  this  they  are  doing  and  can  well  do  without 
ignoring  the  value  of  the  older  forms  of  scholar- 
ship and  culture. 

But  I  have  a  few  remarks  to  make  also  upon 
the  ethical  relations  of  the  business  world  of 
today  toward  the  political  world ;  that  is  to  say, 
toward  organized  government,  whether  in  its 
sovereign  or  in  its  subordinate  forms.  We  can- 
not take  too  high  a  ground  in  proclaiming  the 
value,  for  the  present,  at  lea^,  of  the  political 
organization  of  society.  I  should  like  to  dwell 
upon  this  point,  but  I  mu^  merely  ^ate  it.  If 
the  State:  /.  e.,  the  political  form  of  social  or- 
ganization, is  valuable, — it  ilands  to  reason  that 
it  mu^  be  respeded  and  maintained  at  its  be^. 
It  is  also  obvious  that  it  will  have  a  higher  or  a 
lower  charader  and  efficiency,  according  to  the 
attitude  toward  it  taken  by  one  or  another  of 
151] 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 


the  dominant  fadors  that  make  up  the  complex 
body  politic. 

Thus,  for  example,  it  is  the  feeling  of  men  in 
control  of  the  political  organization  in  France 
today  that  the  Church,  as  a  great  fadtor  in  the 
social  ^rudture  of  the  nation,  is  essentially  ho^ile 
to  the  spirit  and  purposes  of  a  liberal  republic. 
Hence  a  great  di^urbance  of  various  relation- 
ships. I  do  not  cite  that  in^ance  to  express 
even  the  shade  of  an  opinion.  My  point  is  that 
if  the  political  organization  of  society  is  desirable 
and  to  be  maintained,  it  is  a  fortunate  thing  when 
one  finds  the  dominant  forces  of  society  render- 
ing loyal  and  faithful  support  to  the  laws  and  in- 
^itutions  of  government  and  recognizing  without 
reserve  the  sovereignty  of  the  State.  Yet  in  our 
own  country  there  is  a  widespread  feeling  that 
many  of  the  mo^  potent  forces  and  agencies  in 
our  business  life  are  not  wholly  patriotic,  in  that 
they  are  not  willing  in  pradice  to  recognize  the 
necessity  of  the  domination  of  government  and 
[52] 


THE  BUSINESS  CAREER 
[B^ggg»— — — — i— ^^^^^»l 

of  law.  I  do  not  believe  that  this  is  perma- 
nently and  generally  true.  It  would  con^itute  a 
great  danger  if  it  were  a  fixed  or  a  growing 
tendency. 

As  matters  ^and,  however,  every  one  mu^ 
admit  that  there  is  an  element  of  danger  that  lies 
in  the  very  fad  that  as  a  nation  we  are  in  a  con- 
dition of  peace,  content,  and  prosperity,  and  do 
not  find  our  political  in^itutions  irksome.  The 
danger  consi^s  in  this:  that  under  such  circum- 
^ances  the  rewards  of  business  and  professional 
life  are  for  the  mo^  part  so  much  more  certain 
and  satisfactory  than  those  which  come  from  the 
precarious  pursuit  of  politics,  that  public  intere^s 
have  a  tendency  to  suffer  from  being  in  weak 
hands,  while  private  intere^s  have  a  tendency  to 
assert  themselves  unduly,  from  being  in  the  hands 
of  men  of  superior  force.  Thus  it  happens  that 
it  is  often  difficult  for  the  State  to  maintain  that 
dignity,  that  ma^ery,  that  high  position,  as  the 
impartial  arbiter  and  dispenser  of  juftice,  which 
[53] 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 


it  is  now  even  more  necessary  than  ever  that  it 
should  maintain,  in  order  that  the  vv^hole  social 
organization  should  keep  a  true  harmony  and  a 
safe  balance. 

At  present,  the  State  is  largely  concerned 
with  the  maintenance  of  conditions  under  which 
the  economic  and  business  life  may  operate 
equally  and  prosperously.  The  State  in  one 
sense  is  the  ma^er  of  the  people.  In  another 
sense  it  is  merely  their  creature  and  their  agent 
for  such  purposes  as  they  choose  to  assign  it. 
Is  the  State,  then,  to  absorb  the  indu^rial  func- 
tions, and  are  we  to  develop  into  a  sociali^ic 
commonwealth?  Or,  shall  the  political  democ- 
racy and  the  cooperative  organization  of  business 
life  go  on  side  by  side,  related  at  many  points 
but  in  the  main  di^indl  from  each  other  ?  What- 
ever the  relation  of  the  State  to  indu^ry  may  be 
defined  to  become  in  the  di^ant  future,  we  may 
be  sure  that  there  will  be  no  rash  upheavals, 
no  harmful  sociali^ic  experiments,  if  the  potent 
[54] 


THE     BUSINESS     CAREER 


business  world  clearly  sees  how  necessary  to  its 
own  salvation  it  is  that  the  State  shall  be  main- 
tained upon  a  high  plane  of  dignity  and  honor,  and 
that  the  official  dispensation  of  ju^ice,  as  well 
as  the  official  admini^ration  of  the  laws,  shall  be 
prompt,  ju^  and  impartial. 

There  is  no  higher  duty,  therefore,  incumbent 
upon  the  business  man  of  today  than  to  bear  his 
part  in  promoting  and  maintaining  the  purity  of 
political  life.  The  modern  business  man  should 
regard  good  government  as  one  of  the  vital  con- 
ditions of  the  be^  economic  progress.  Yet 
scores  of  in^ances  are  at  hand  that  show  to 
what  a  painful  extent  certain  business  intere^s 
again  and  again,  for  purposes  of  immediate  ad- 
vantage,—  to  secure  a  franchise,  to  escape  a  tax, 
or  to  procure  some  improper  favor  or  advantage 
at  the  hands  of  those  in  political  authority, — 
have  employed  corrupt  methods  and  thus  Gained 
the  fair  escutcheon  of  American  business  honor, 
while  breaking  down  the  one  mo^  indispensable 
[551 


THE      BUSINESS      CAREER 

condition  of  general  business  progress, —  namely, 
hone^  and  efficient  free  government. 

I  will  not  dwell  upon  these  things.  It  is 
enough  to  say  that  they  are  things  the  modern 
business  man  mu^  have  upon  his  conscience. 
For,  if  such  offenses  come  by  way  of  the  busi- 
ness world,  their  remedies  muil  also  come,  and 
indeed  can  only  come,  by  that  same  path.  In 
our  municipal  life,  for  example,  it  is  the  aroused 
intere^  and  zeal  of  the  be^  business  community 
for  better  government  and  better  conditions  that 
can  alone  produce  important  results.  Happily, 
all  over  the  country  we  find  chambers  of  com- 
merce, boards  of  trade,  merchants'  associations, 
and  other  bodies  of  men  of  practical  business 
affairs,  taking  their  ^and  for  the  transadion  of 
public  business  upon  high  ^andards  of  character 
and  efficiency.  I  have  no  doubt  or  fears  as  to 
what  the  result  will  be.  All  of  our  large  cities 
are  themselves  purely  the  creations  of  modern  in- 
du^rial,  commercial,  and  transportation  conditions. 
1561 


THE      BUSINESS      CAREER 

I  "I 

And  I  hold  that  these  very  forces  of  indu^rial 
and  commercial  life  that  have  created  the  prob- 
lems by  bringing  together  great  masses  of  people 
in  crowded  communities,  mu^  and  can  in  turn 
solve  the  problems  by  the  application  to  muni- 
cipal government  of  the  scientific  and  intelligent 
principles  which  belong  to  the  be^  phases  of 
business  life. 

All  of  this  relates  to  my  subjedl;  but  I  mu^ 
pass  it  by  with  a  mere  ^atement  or  two.  It  be- 
longs to  the  developed  con^rudtive  imagination 
and  to  the  trained  ethical  sense  of  the  modern 
business  man  to  perfed  the  transit  syilems,  to 
improve  the  housing  conditions,  to  assure  cheap 
sanitary  water  supplies,  cheap  illumination,  and, 
above  all,  due  provision  for  universal  education, 
parks,  museums,  and  opportunities  for  recrea- 
tion,— in  short,  all  possible  improvements  of  en- 
vironment that  can  make  life  in  our  cities  not 
merely  endurable  but  beneficial  for  the  people. 
Here,  then,  is  furnished  a  great  field  for  the 
[57] 


THE      BUSINESS      CAREER 


Q 


definite  and  conscious  aspirations  of  the  success- 
ful man  of  business.  Here  lies  a  great  many- 
sided  work  for  social  and  moral  as  well  as 
physical  and  material  progress  which  the  business 
man,  in  the  quality  of  good  citizen  and  man  of 
public  spirit,  is  fitted  better  than  any  one  else  to 
accomplish. 

The  intelligent  young  man  who  holds  before 
himself  ideals  of  usefulness  that  extend  to  such 
projedts  as  these,  may  be  sure  that  the  modern 
conditions  of  life  will  bring  him  great  opportuni- 
ties, and  he  may  feel  that  he  is  thus  lifting  his 
business  career  up  to  the  plane  of  idealism  that 
has,  in  the  pail,  been  reserved  for  a  few  exclusive 
professions.  Partly  through  his  own  endeav- 
ors,—  largely  through  association  in  commercial 
or  other  organizations  with  his  neighbors, —  he 
may  help  to  accomplish  for  the  benefit  of  all  his 
fellow  men  of  a  great  community  one  ^ep  after 
another  in  the  diredion  of  public  works  that  will 
meet  the  needs  of  a  high  civilization. 
158] 


THE     BUSINESS      CAREER 

Some  of  the  mo^  useful  men,  as  well  as  the 
mo^  unselfish  and  devoted,  with  whom  I  come 
in  contadl  are  successful  business  men  of  large 
affairs.  They  are  mode^  and  unassuming; 
simple  and  diredl  in  their  methods;  wide  as 
the  world  in  their  sympathies;  lofty  as  the  ilars 
in  their  aspirations  for  human  progress ;  sagacious 
beyond  other  classes  of  men,  and  respedled  to 
the  point  of  veneration  by  those  who  know  them 
well,  because  they  are  men  of  deeds  rather  than 
of  words,  who  make  good  their  professions  from 
day  to  day.  Business  has  not  so  narrowed  them, 
nor  has  devotion  to  philanthropic  ends  or  public 
reforms  so  di^orted  their  mental  visions,  that 
they  are  not  able  to  enjoy  what  is  good  in  life, 
whether  books,  music,  pictures,  the  companion- 
ship of  friends,  or  the  re^ful  contadl  with  nature 
in  field  or  fore^. 

The  lives  of  such  men  are  dominated  by 
certain  fixed  ethical  ^andards.  Given  such 
moral  landmarks,  the  remarkable  conditions  and 
[59] 


THE      BUSINESS     CAREER 


unequaled  opportunities  of  modern  business  life 
will  promote  the  frequent  development  of  men  of 
this  kind,  with  their  breadth  of  view  and  ^rength 
of  mind  and  charader.  It  is  the  positive  and 
aggressive  attitude  toward  life,  the  ethics  of  adion, 
rather  than  the  ethics  of  negation,  that  mu^ 
control  the  modern  business  world,  and  that  may 
make  our  modern  business  man  the  mo^  potent 
fador  for  good  in  this,  his  own,  indu^rial  period. 


[60] 


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